The Instrumental Value of Work: that work is a God-given means toward several important ends.
*Excerpts from Your Work Matters to God by Sherman/Hendricks
God gives us 5 reasons to work (page 87);
1. Through work we serve people
2. Through work we meet our own needs
3. Through work we meet our family's needs
4. Through work we earn money to give to others
5. Through work we love God
Through Work We Love God (pages 93-94)
The final reason God has given us work is so that we can love Him. Does this sound odd to you, the idea of work as a means toward loving God?.....
Let me suggest that your work makes loving God very practical....
The test of love. That is, after all, what it means to love God: to do what God wants us to do, and to do it out of a sincere desire to please Him. In fact, that is the only way we can love Him.
Let me apply this idea to you and your work. If you want to love God through your work, then you need to determine that what you are doing in your job is something God wants done, and that you are doing your job becasue God wants it done.
Suppose you are a piano tuner. Is that something God wans done? It unquestionably is, because the pianist cannot play on a piano that is out of tune.. Furthermore, if you have the ear for it, then you have a God-given means of providing for this need and for your income.
I encourage you as a worker to think through your job on this basis. At first it may be hard to see how your work connects with anything that God wants done. But I advise you to hink very broadly about the needs that people have and hte work that God has given mankind to do.
Note: this is only a small part of what Sherman have to say about this subject of loving God through your work.
